


atlantic city

by lastwingedthing



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, Star Wars: Rebels, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Force Ghosts, Future Fic, Gen, Rex in TLJ
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-02
Updated: 2019-04-02
Packaged: 2020-01-01 01:05:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18325571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lastwingedthing/pseuds/lastwingedthing
Summary: Old habits die hard; Rex will always be a soldier.(Or: Rex survives to the see the events of The Last Jedi, and what comes after.)





	atlantic city

Rex wasn’t even in the damn New Republic anymore, but even here in the independent Outer Rim, everybody’s first instinct in a crisis was to talk. He’d gone along with it for a while, but enough was enough. He was too kriffing old to put up with the banthashit for long.

He’d been visiting Lothal when news of the attack on the Hosnian System hit the holonet, and almost before he’d had the chance to take it in Rex had gotten pulled straight into what turned into interplanetary talks between more than a dozen independent systems, not to mention another half-dozen New Republic-aligned planets looking desperately to make new friends. He sat through two full days of marathon meetings, two hour catnaps between eighteen and twenty hour sessions, all of the delegates pretending they weren’t sneaking out into the hallways to cram down ration bars on bathroom breaks – all things considered, Rex thought he’d done pretty well to stay the course as long as he had before he snapped and broke out into the comparative freedom of a Lothal military base.

Rex was old and he was tired; it was tempting just to find an empty bunk somewhere and sleep. But he _was_ on a military base, still free and independent: he wasn’t going to waste the opportunities that position offered while he still had them. One thing Rex was sure of: he wouldn’t be sitting around here for long.

Rex was a soldier, not a politician. When he’d gotten pulled into the first meeting, it had been solely in an advisory capacity, as a military expert and veteran of two galaxy-wide wars. He’d sat down individually with senior representatives from at least eight systems, providing his assessment of their military readiness: now there was nothing left but agonising over decisions so painful that no planet or system had yet shown enough guts to commit to anything.

But that part wasn’t Rex’s job, and he supposed it was easy enough for him to say which way each planet should commit itself, knowing he wouldn’t personally have to bear the inevitable consequences of those decisions.

Lothal, like most planets in Mandalore’s sphere of influence, had access to resources, military technology, trained and skilful soldiers: like most of those planets it would probably choose to fight. They had a decent chance of staying independent – they’d done it before, after all. And this time they had friends.

Mandalore itself had already committed to military action, but that was always going to be a given: Rex didn’t think the First Order had ever gone up against the full Mandalorian military before, and he wasn’t going to lie, part of him wanted to see what would happen when they tried. Sure, since the fall of the Empire Mandalore had gotten rich serving as the main source of New Republic weapons tech – not to mention First Order weapons tech, via those renegade clans that refused to accept the authority of the current Mand’alor – but even so, they’d always saved their best to use at home.

But Mandalore had never much cared what happened outside its sector, and it only really dealt with client states, not allies on an equal footing to itself. The rest of the Outer Rim – not to mention those purportedly New Republican planets with independent militaries, those too far from the Core to trust to it for their defence – had to choose between throwing themselves, more or less alone, into a direct fight with an enemy that had already neutralised the entire New Republic, or making the choice to surrender immediately and perhaps save some of their planet’s resources for a drawn out guerrilla fight once the galaxy had the chance to regroup – or perhaps merely watch as their planet’s people and wealth were ground up and consumed to feed the First Order machine.

No, Rex didn’t fancy making that kind of choice. He’d never commanded anything bigger or more complex than a legion for good reason, and even that had been a long damn time ago. They’d tried to make him a General once, back in the last years of the Rebellion, but Rex had put his foot down: Commander had been good enough for his brothers back in the Clone Wars, it would be good enough for any other war.

(And there was another reason why Rex was never going to put himself in a position where people might start referring to him as a General, but at least the old Rebellion leadership had been polite enough not to bring that up. Kids these days – who knew what they’d try.)

Kids these days… He didn’t even recognise half of the weapons they were carrying around this base; the main one seemed to be some kind of new rifle model, sleek and streamlined, but there were also grenades and a squat compact laser pistol he was itching to get his hands on. Straight out of the factories on Krownest, Rex would bet; then again, the head of Clan Wren did have plenty of connections with Lothal, and a personal interest in making sure they got access to her best.

Lothal’s military had seen incredible development since its independence, but even so, most of the staff in the main comms tower were still Mandalorians. Nobody Rex recognised, but all Clan Wren from their armour markings – and they all seemed to recognise him. He didn’t even need to pull out the authorisations Sabine had given him the last time he’d visited her and her wife.

Well, Rex’s face was kind of famous, even now. And even if all it got him these days was politeness from heavily armoured Mandalorian kids who probably hadn’t even been born for the last war – well, he’d take it.

One of those kids, too-eager in blue painted armour, escorted him all the way up to the data centre and got him a terminal and the latest access codes. She didn’t even ask what he wanted them for, though that might have been self-evident. They’d all gotten summaries and digests of the latest intel on the First Order in the briefing rooms, but Rex was too much the old soldier to trust to someone else’s analysis: he wanted to get his hands on the raw data himself.

A lot of it was old news. Rex travelled a lot these days: six months on Ryloth, a year in Sundari, two years on Lira San, another year on Naboo – just keeping up with old friends. Rex had a lot of those. And if those old friends just happened to have their hands on the best intel from across the galaxy, well, that was just a convenient coincidence, wasn’t it?

But some of the intel was new.

He skimmed through most of it, taking in the key points without lingering on the detail – Rex knew before he looked that it would be best to avoid that. He’d been taught to bury any emotional reactions to other people’s trauma – his own trauma too, for that matter – almost as soon as he’d fallen out of the decanting tube. Much later he’d learned other ways to deal with pain, and mostly they were better ways, but sometimes he needed the old flash-trained emotional distance.

Seemed like the older he got, though, the harder it was to hold onto that. When Rex got to the package General Organa’s people had sent out in a desperate databurst right before the First Order hit her people on Crait, he had to close his eyes and breathe for a long moment.

As far as he knew, she was still alive.

As far as he knew –

He knew why Lothal hadn’t answered that last call for help. Doubted any of her other allies would have done it. Didn’t matter when it was, which war it was, the same damn galaxy had the same damn problems. Everyone always had an excuse for why they had to look after themselves first.

He’d been right on the point of calling Hera and seeing if he could prise her and the Ghost out of retirement for one last desperate blaze of glory before they’d gotten word that the General had broken out of Crait all on her own. There’d been no contact since then, but Rex had faith – a little bit, anyway. Faith in General Organa, if nothing else.

Truth be told, he wasn’t sure if she would have even welcomed the last-minute rescue attempt – not from him, at any rate. She was always polite and respectful to him, one Rebel soldier to another – when she saw him. That didn’t happen often; she made thoroughly sure of that.

He was just too much of a reminder of old history, history she’d have preferred to keep buried. Luke had hung on every old Clone Wars story Rex could remember, but the General – no.

He didn’t blame her. Didn’t have to like it, but he understood.

Still. He’d known her as a little girl, back on Alderaan, when he was still running missions with Fulcrum for her father. He’d thought she’d at least appreciate some of his stories about Senator Organa and the early days of the Rebellion, but she hadn’t wanted any of that, either.

Her choice.

Still – if she died out there in the black, her and that little band of survivors, alone –

Rex shook his head hard, wiping absently at his eyes. _Get the job done, Rex_. Sure he was old and sentimental these days, but he wasn’t some birthborn civvie to start drowning in his own emotions; even if he wobbled a bit these days, his flash-training had been better than that.

It was flash-training too that told him when he’d pushed his poor old tired brain too far. Didn’t matter what he’d been capable of in the old days; _he_ was old now, and four hours with the intelligence datastream was all he could take before he needed sleep.

It was a good start, though. A plan was coming together in his mind, fragments of old data on First Order procedures and commands slotting together with the latest on casualties and field promotions from the intel he’d scanned. He didn’t necessarily like the picture it made, but it felt solid, it hung together. He’d know for sure after he’d had a chance to sleep on it and come up with some proper contingencies – but he was pretty sure it would work. And Rex was just about the only one left who could carry it out.

That same polite Mandalorian kid led him limping back downstairs – the prosthetic knee worked much better than the real one these days – swung him past the messhall for a bowlful of something high-calorie and steaming hot, and then took him over to an empty bunk in one of the big barracks underneath the comms tower. Poor kid was practically falling over herself to apologise and explain why Capital City Base didn’t have a spare private room even for an elderly decorated veteran right now – then made it even worse apologising for calling him elderly – but Rex just laughed and cut her off. He’d fought in too many wars to care about where he bunked down, and truth be told, even now he’d prefer drifting off in a roomful of snoring farting muttering strangers to sleeping in his own private lonely little box of a room. Privileges of rank Rex’s bony old ass; back in the old days, fresh off Kamino, it had taken Rex and his brothers _weeks_ to understand that the private rooms assigned to the officer class hadn’t been meant as some kind of obscure Jedi punishment. What kind of crazy bastard would _prefer_ to live and sleep without company?

They hadn’t made Rex and his brothers to live well on their own.

 

 

Rex dreamed that night. Started off as some strange distorted reflection of the things he’d seen or thought about that day, the Mandalorian kid standing in a line with Sabine and Hera and Cody and Senator Apailana from the talks, all taking turns to yell at him for not shipping straight out to Crait as soon as he heard General Organa’s call.

“She didn’t need me,” Rex said feebly, trying to defend himself, but Cody just looked at him, eyes cold and sad in his beautiful young man’s face.

“It’s too late now. She’s gone. It’s your fault – ”

Even in the dream Rex knew that wasn’t fair, and wasn’t something Cody would have ever said to him anyway – old wounds, though. That one hurt.

But then suddenly the walls of the room fell away and he was standing out on the Lothal plains, alone, under a shadowed evening sky. His mind felt clear and sharp, like he’d woken up, but Rex knew this was still a dream.

There was someone behind him, he thought – but when he turned it was just a dim figure off in the distance. He knew her, though. Of course he knew her.

“Ahsoka!” he called, but she just kept walking away from him, back a determined straight line.

“She’ll come back when it’s time,” another voice said from behind him, old and familiar.

“I’m pretty sure now’s the time,” he grumbled, turning again.

This person didn’t walk away from Rex like Ahsoka, though maybe it would have made more sense if he had. As far as Rex knew Ahsoka was still alive and well in the Unknown Regions, but this man had been dead for years.

“She’ll come back when the time’s right,” Anakin said again. He had a faint smile on his face, wistful and sweet. “Or that’s what she said last time I saw her, anyway. I think she’ll be on her way soon, but she has a long way to travel, getting back here.”

“She’d better not take too long,” Rex said. It hurt his heart, thinking that he’d likely have to leave before she got back – one more time he wouldn’t get the chance to say goodbye. “They’ll need her here.”

“Yes,” Anakin said, not denying it.

“Well, even if she’s not here, it’s good to see you – but where have _you_ been?” It would be hard to suppress the smile right now, and Rex didn’t even try.

Since the night Rex had left Ryloth, since well before this crisis had started – not that he’d been keeping count of his dreamless nights, exactly. But it would have been good to hear from an old friend.

Anakin snorted, smile fading. “Where do you think? Trying to talk to people who won’t listen to me. Trying to prevent the inevitable. I meant to come see you, but with everything I was doing, it was getting too hard to keep track of how time moves for you…”

“Anakin – “

“It’s alright. All is as the Force wills,” he said, and he sounded almost at peace – but Rex knew better.

Anakin’s face wasn’t exactly as Rex remembered it from the old days. Here he looked like a handsome man in his forties with laugh lines round his mouth and the corners of his eyes – a face that never changed, belonging to the man he’d never gotten the chance to become. But Rex had been meeting him here in dream long enough to make this face familiar, too.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, feeling a tight clench round his heart. “Is it – Leia – I thought she’d made it –”

Anakin shook his head no, but there were tears gathering now at the corners of his eyes.

“Not Leia. Luke. He’s – he’s here now – in the Force.”

That hit hard, that hurt. Luke had been gone for years, a sad old man who’d cut himself off from everything he loved, even his sister, even the Force. But in Rex’s heart he was still that sweet smiling pilot he’d met on Hoth. And if Rex was hurting at this news…

Without stopping to think Rex stepped forward and took Anakin into his arms.

Anakin’s body felt warm and solid and real; stiff at first, and hurting, but then softening into Rex’s hold as he began to sob.

They held on to each other for a long time, two old men seeking comfort; Rex could admit he needed it almost as much as Anakin did.

Times like this, it was too easy to get caught in what-ifs. Rex would never have touched Anakin like this in the old days, would never have dared to, even though he’d known damn well how much pain his General was carrying, how deep he’d been sinking into it. If he had – if he’d let go of the stupid regulations and training that had put the Jedi up on a pedestal where no common clone could touch them – if he’d taken that risk, to offer comfort, and just to _talk_ –

But there was no point in tormenting himself. He’d made those choices a long time ago, they all had. The past was done, there was no changing it.

You just had to take what you had left and keep going. No other choice.

At last he felt Anakin drawn in a deep breath and step back out of Rex’s hold. Both of them were brushing back tears.

“He lived his life the way he chose,” Anakin said. “And I think he’ll stay like I have, for a while at least – ”

He broke off, but Rex could have finished his sentence for him. _He’ll stay until Leia joins him_.

Damn, Rex had lived too long. Bad enough to have outlived every brother he knew – but at least many of those brothers had children, bright sparks marching forward to carry their memories, their blood, into the future. But to outlive children, too…

_Damn_ , that hurt.

The dreamworld began to flicker then, fading fast.

“You need to wake up, Rex,” Anakin said. “I’ll see you soon – ”

_You’d better_ , Rex started to say, but the world was brighter, suddenly, and he was looking up at the helmeted face of a Mandalorian soldier shaking him awake.

“Commander Rex,” the kid said solemnly – a different kid this time, a boy sounding even younger than the first one, if that was even possible – “Commander Rex, you need to come see this.”

Rex’s head protested at that – his back, his poor aching knee – screaming that there was no way he’d gotten in even four hours sleep since he crawled into the bunk. No matter.

Groaning Rex pulled himself upright, and back to work.

 

 

Kid pulled him into the wide courtyard below the main tower and left him there in the quick-thickening crowd; seemed like half the base was crammed in here, and more expected. He shuffled around, discovering from his neighbours that there was new intel coming through, and not much else.

Finally the crowd seemed to reach some critical mass. A tall Rodian woman Rex recognised as one of the senior bureaucrats in the Communications Ministry stepped up to the low platform at one end of the courtyard, waving her arms for quiet.

“Citizens and friends! Half an hour ago our technicians received a transmission originating from surviving members of General Organa’s resistance. They are sending through a message for the galaxy that we expect to receive shortly. Please remain quiet for the incoming transmission!”

Rex felt his breath catch in his throat. Around him the crowd went dead-silent, staring up at the space on the platform where someone had started projecting the blue haze of an empty holotransmission.

Eventually a figure popped into view – a helmeted young pilot Rex didn’t recognise. Not General Organa, though.

Rex sighed, very quietly.

“My name is Lieutenant Jessika Pava, of Black Squadron of the Resistance,” the pilot said, straight-backed and firm. “I am reporting to confirm the destruction of Starkiller Base by Resistance forces.”

Utter, complete silence.

The holocam suddenly expanded, shooting in wide view and full colour, to reveal the space outside a starship viewscreen. The scattered images were hard to put into context at first – emptiness, a tumble of rock, and then something that might have been metal… a broken, iced-over tangle that might once have been trees…

A pale shape that could have been a stormtrooper’s armoured corpse…

The cam work was good. They had a small fighter in one corner of the screen, as a size comparison – zoomed out – zoomed out further – now the size comparison was a full heavy transport freighter, and the cam was still shooting the debris field, and hadn’t yet come to its end.

It jumped again to another ship, a long _long_ way out, now, and finally they could see the debris field in full. Just astronomical rubble, it looked like from this distance, but the debris was still in rapid motion, the field expanding. Navigators could do something with that data, with velocity and scatter patterns; someone had already started doing the calculations, there were numbers scrolling down the edge of the screen. Radiation readings, mass spectrometry… Rex didn’t have the training to pull a full picture out of that, but whatever that debris field had been, it hadn’t just been plain rock in there; and it had been _big_.

Next thing the cam showed them was a standard astronavigational sweep, cam circling around to pick up the major star clusters and pulling up the magnification to help with a brightness check.

There’d be debris fields something like this one in the Hosnian sector, too; but the stars said this field was about as far from the Core as it was possible to get. Deep, deep in the Unknown Regions. The only place the First Order could have been hiding a base the size of Starkiller.

First Order must be kicking themselves that they’d released that sickening celebratory vid right after the Hosnian Cataclysm, showing Starkiller’s first test firing. Great propaganda to make the galaxy roll over fast – except they’d left too much sky in the vid. Even if the stars weren’t visible to the naked eye, the computers could see them; you could damn well bet half the galaxy had already started running analysis to match those stars with the ones in this vid.

Great propaganda for them, to show that the First Order’s big scary hold on the galaxy hadn’t even lasted as long as the first Death Star…

Finally the cam jumped back to Lieutenant Pava. “We’ve done a datadump on this frequency, if anyone would like independent proof I’m sitting out where I’m saying I am. But I don’t recommend coming out here in person – First Order seems oddly protective of these rocks, for some reason.” She smirked. “It’s as if there’s something here they want to hide. But we convinced them to show us in the end.”

The cam panned in again one last time, back to that heavy freighter – no, it was a First Order transport, and it wasn’t in good shape, massive hull breaches visible in the shadows on its forward side. Even as they watched, half of a TIE fighter spun slowly out from behind it.

“The Resistance sacrificed almost everything to take this monstrosity down. We could have put all our resources into fleeing D’Qar faster, and saved more of us – but it was worth it – “

“Jess, time to go! We’ve got incoming – “ Another voice broke through the recording.

“Even when things look hopeless! You never know what you can manage, if you just stand your ground, and fight!”

The recording broke off then, but the silence lingered. Until somebody started to cheer and then it spread, hysterical joy and relief.

The vid gave them time for that, for celebrating. Figured the Resistance, of all people, would understand the need for that.

Then it came on again, opening with the sharp snap of a faulty holoconnection that cleared the noise of the room in a breath.

It was General Organa on the screen. She looked _old_ – Rex had never seen her look old like that – sitting down on an old armaments crate with a stick leaning on her knee.

But she was alive, gloriously alive, and smiling.

“Well,” she said, starting off slow, the way she did these days. “I’m General Organa of the Resistance, but I think you all know that, don’t you? I’m still here. My people have had a hard fight, but the bastards haven’t gotten all of us yet. They haven’t stopped us yet – and they won’t.”

She smiled, a quirk of her mouth she’d picked up from her father; Rex remembered seeing him smile like that, giving speeches in the old Republican Senate, long ago.

“Even if they kill us all, they can’t stop us. They can’t stop our voices, and they can’t stop our memories. No one will ever forget that we fought, or _why_ we fought. No one will forget the Hosnian System. Just like no one will ever forget Alderaan, or Scarif, or Jedha; Geonosis, or Lasan.” Her voice was quickening now, the bright cadences of the speeches of her Senatorial career. “No one will ever forget all those in this galaxy who died fighting for the dream of a better life – or those who died only because the ones who ruled them cared nothing for their lives. But we carry their memories in our hearts, all of our dead; and remembering them, we remember something worth fighting for. We carry them with us, forward, into the light.”

She smiled again. This one slower, and a little sad.

“Help me up, will you?” she asked, to someone off the screen beside her; that someone, a young woman dressed in long dark robes, quickly stepped into view to help her with a considerate hand.

Then Leia looked back on the screen, still resting heavily on the arm of the girl beside her.

“Will you remember with me?” she asked the cam, asked her invisible audience. “Will you remember the living, and the dead?”

Dead silence, again.

Then Leia started to sing.

Rex recognised the tune almost immediately. Felt it hit him like a gutpunch.

The Rider’s Song… it had been a pretty little Alderaanian folksong, once, before Princess Leia – the Rebel Princess, the last survivor of the Alderaanian Royal House – had recorded herself singing it, about three days after the destruction of her planet. She’d been nineteen years old, in that pretty white dress, eyes huge in her white face; holding herself under such rigid control it had seemed like she’d snap at a mistimed breath.

She hadn’t let herself speak – maybe she couldn’t – but she’d sung, and let everything she was feeling, everything she was fighting, come out in her voice.

That had been in the very early days when the Empire had still been pretending Alderaan was a natural disaster, and even to mention something different in public was to court immediate arrest. That hadn’t lasted long – pretty quickly the story had changed, so that Alderaan was a nest of rebel vipers that needed to be crushed for the good of the galaxy; the Empire had had no _choice_ but to take the shot…

Leia’s raw grief and _rage_ had cut through that bullshit like a plasma blade through mud.

The imps banned her song immediately, of course, but even so for a while it seemed like the whole galaxy had been playing that vid. Sabine had even hacked one of the imperial frequencies once, put a worm on the airwaves that for a few weeks had played the song at every official planetary function across half the galaxy.

These days you only heard the Rider’s Song at veteran parades and over the closing credits of maudlin holodocumentaries, but it was only ever, ever, Leia’s voice that sang it, nineteen and perfect forever.

And it was still Leia singing. An old woman now, voice cracked and harsh with grief and hard work and _living_ – oh god, but what a joy it was, to know she’d made it this far, the girl Rex had feared wouldn’t live to see twenty –

Then at the next verse Leia tilted her head at the girl beside her, the people around her – and the cam panned out to show the room crammed full of people – twenty of them, maybe, or thirty – most in uniform, most tired and dirty, a few old veterans Rex remembered from the old days, but most very young.

They started to sing with her.

Not many of them were very skilful, some of them couldn’t quite keep in time, but there was something about hearing so many voices together, in chorus, singing _that_ song…

Some of them were crying, as they sang. Hell, _Rex_ was crying – he was a maudlin old man and he didn’t care. And suddenly at the next lines he was singing too, in the husky whisper age had made of his voice.

They were all singing now, the whole courtyard full of them, four or five hundred voices singing aloud their grief and fear and pain – but they were together, all of them here together – and no doubt they were singing like this in towns across Lothal, everywhere that technicians had managed to link into the General’s transmission – thousands more of them, tens of thousands across the broad green plains – and across other planets too, across Ryloth and Kashyyyk and Chandrila and Takodana and Naboo and a hundred other allied worlds – and in hidden rooms and bases on planets that had already given in, or been given up, to the First Order – and maybe even in secret places on the ships of the First Order themselves – all of them, together in this moment, singing with a single heart.

Maybe having the Force felt something like this, to be connected to a vast web of living beings across the galaxy, to feel part of something so much greater than one solitary human mind –

And then it was over. The song was done.

“We can’t let our loved ones die in vain. The First Order can’t stop us all,” Leia said, not bothering to wipe the wetness from her eyes. “Only our own fear can do that. I won’t tell you – I of all people can’t tell you – that there isn’t a cost to fighting. But it’s worth it. Our lives – our happiness – our freedom – they’re worth fighting for.”

The vid hissed and snapped again, finished. The spell broken. But Rex wasn’t going to forget.

 

 

Rex went back to his room after that. There were people talking in low voices all around him, and no doubt they had important things to say; but Rex couldn’t face them, couldn’t face speaking to anyone. Easier to claim the fragility of old age – and that wasn’t exactly a lie. Before he knew it, almost as soon as he lay down on his narrow bunk, Rex found himself slipping into sleep.

This time he found himself on a steep rocky path in rainswept mountains, fighting to keep his balance on mud and slick stone. Patchy clouds twined through the valleys, mostly hiding the mountain slopes, but Rex knew that around the next bend in the path he’d come to the edge of the knife-sharp escarpment where the mountains ended, like a wall around the monsoon-drenched plains far below.

When the clouds cleared he’d see the ocean.

Altera. This was the planet where Rex’s original 340th Legion had been wiped out through a combination of naivety from their Jedi and by-the-books rigidity from their clone commander; the planet where he and Anakin had led a small group of clone survivors into the shelter of the mountains, carrying out lightning guerrilla raids on the Separatist encampments on the plains below for almost a month before the 212th came to their rescue.

The Order officially knighted Anakin, after that – he’d been only nineteen, struggling to come to terms with his new prosthesis and with some deeper crisis of faith in the Jedi order that even Rex had been able to see – but the Order was desperate, and Anakin had proven himself too talented to waste.

They’d given Rex the 501st.

The first clone trooper to be promoted through the ranks – the first one to prove that a clone didn’t have to be raised as a commander from his decanting to serve as one – even now Rex could still feel an echo of the astonished pride he’d felt when the order had come through. That pride had seen him keep his trooper designation even after he went into command; Rex hadn’t wanted to forget where he’d come from, hadn’t wanted anyone else to forget.

It had been _his_ 501st, as much as Anakin’s – more so. The first thing in Rex’s life that had ever been his, in those days when even his brothers, even his own body belonged to someone else.

It still broke his heart to think what Anakin had done to them all.

It was best not to think on that too closely, most of the time. The past was done, you couldn’t go back.

Except there was a hard way and a kind way to try to get the next thing he needed, and here, now, with Leia’s song still echoing in his ears – Rex didn’t think he had it in him to be kind.

“Do you remember Raxus?” Rex said aloud, to the empty path. He didn’t have to turn around to know that here, in this place, Anakin would be right behind him.

There were faint scuffing sounds, boots on stone, as Anakin eased his way round Rex. “Which time?” he asked, quietly, once they were face to face.

“The last time. When Vader’s Fist wiped out the rebel leadership there for good.”

Anakin looked down, lashes dark against his cheeks. He looked younger this time; or maybe that was only Rex’s faulty memory, forgetting the face he’d had so many years ago.

“I remember,” he said, very soft.

“One of the Separatist loyalists managed to break out and make it offworld, and eventually his story made it back to Bail Organa. I saw the vid footage – the way he almost sounded like he admired Vader, despite himself. You made them think they’d wiped out most of your troops, that they had you on the run; and all the time you were leading them into range of the troops you’d hidden in the mountains, and their cannon. It was brilliant, even I could admit it.” Rex hesitated, waiting for Anakin to meet his eyes. “That’s when I knew it was you behind that mask. I didn’t want to believe it, I hid it from myself for a long time – but in my heart I knew it was you.”

How many years had Rex hid that knowledge from himself? How many years to accept it?

And how many for Rex to admit that he still loved Anakin all the same?

It wasn’t forgiveness, not exactly. Some things – Rex’s brothers, Padme, Obi-Wan – some things Rex could never forgive.

Love, though. Love could go further than forgiveness, further than justice. Love wasn’t always wise.

Love had sent him to Vader’s pyre. And he’d found Anakin’s ghost there – a shadow of the man Rex had known, but more than a dream, more than a memory.

The ghost of another chance. And Rex had been lonely…

Anakin’s laugh was shaky, no more than an echo of his old bright confidence. “It was that early – no, of course you figured it out even then. You taught me everything I knew about war.”

“Not everything,” Rex answered quickly; they both knew how much of Skywalker’s – Vader’s – genius had been sheer natural talent. But the Jedi had known war mainly from the perspective of the non-combatants, the victims; it had been centuries since they’d last led men in battle, dealt with large-scale strategy or the sacrifices of combat and command. They just hadn’t been ready for it, hadn’t had the training. The ones that made it to the end of the Clone Wars were the ones who’d listened to their troopers, the ones who let clones teach them about war.

It hadn’t taken long before Anakin’s grasp of tactics, his ability to make plans on the fly, had surpassed even Rex – all that natural talent for violence, that in a better life he’d never have had to discover. But even after Anakin became Vader, his thinking was still clone at the root.  

“This time I need you to teach me,” Rex said. Here, in this place, his voice was as firm and steady as it had been when he was young. The soldier he was at heart, would always be. “I’m going to infiltrate the First Order.”

“Rex – ” Anakin looked horrified, but Rex kept talking; he couldn’t afford to let Anakin stop him now.

“I can do it. Ben – Kylo Ren is obsessed with you, we know that, and I know more than enough about you to hook him and get myself into their command. It’s not just what I learned from the Rebellion – I was at Cody’s debriefings, after Endor. It took almost a year to get through it all - not to mention all those years we lived together. I know he’d been Vader’s unofficial second since Appo died, even if the official paperwork didn’t recognise that clones could hold rank over birthborns. Once we helped get his chip out, he told us everything he knew.”

Anakin visibly blanched at that, but Rex didn’t falter.

“It wouldn’t be hard to pretend I’m an Imperial loyalist from the 501st who got trapped behind enemy lines all those years ago, that I’ve been waiting for the First Order to come back ever since. And I can hide my true thoughts from a Force user – how many of Leia’s people are trained for that? I don’t think there’s many people left who could get as close to Kylo Ren as I can.” He took a steadying breath. “I could probably do it on my own, but it would be easier – safer – if you helped me. Told me those little details, the things that weren’t important enough for Cody to share with the Rebel leadership… things that only you and he would know. You _could_ help me.”

“Help you do what? Rex, you don’t need to do this. Lei – the Resistance almost certainly still has their own people in the First Order; they won’t need you to pass them intel, too.”

“Won’t they?” Rex asked gently. “But it’s not just that, Anakin. If I can get close to Kylo Ren – ”

“Even his own father couldn’t turn him,” Anakin said, bitterly. “Kylo Ren murdered his own father.”

“You killed Padme,” Rex said, still gentle. “You killed Obi-Wan, and you did your damn best to kill Ahsoka. It’s not impossible he could change, even now.”

Anakin took that stoically, but he still shook his head, tears sparkling in the corners of his eyes.

“And if he won’t turn, I know I can do what needs to be done,” Rex went on, remorselessly. “It’s what I was made to do. Good soldiers follow orders – but I’ll make sure Leia doesn’t have to give me that one. I know it would break her heart.”

“And not yours?”

Slowly Rex shook his head. “I never knew Ben, not really. I spent a lot of time with Luke, but Leia never wanted much to do with me, and anyway I had my own life by then, looking after Cody and helping Hera with Jacen. I only ever really saw him from a distance, I don’t have memories of him as a sweet child like the rest of you. I can’t say it would be easy – but I could do it.”

Anakin sighed deeply, staring at the ground again. His own grandson… but he’d always been ruthless when he needed to be, even as a Jedi. Vader had just burned away the pretence.

Now Anakin’s expression was twisted, pained; Rex could read it in an instant, even after this many years. His gut twisted, nerves as much as relief. Rex knew he’d convinced him.

It would happen, then. Part of Rex didn’t know if he was relieved or sorry; the rest knew that need and duty existed regardless of his feelings.   

“Kylo Ren killed Snoke,” Anakin said finally. Rex blinked in surprise; _that_ one hadn’t made it out even to the secure channels. “He’s claimed himself as Emperor, but it’s going to be hard to hold onto that; with the upheavals in their command structure and the losses at Starkiller Base, the First Order’s been destabilised, and Kylo Ren will be floundering trying to hold everything together. An older mentor figure, one with real battle and leadership experience, and with a connection to Vader as extra bait… he’d fall for it. You could do it.”

Rex nodded. He already knew that, but it was good to hear confirmation from Anakin, all the same.

Just a little piece of the old days, making battle plans together, when they still had hope those plans would lead to something better…

“But you don’t have to,” Anakin burst out. “It will be so dangerous – the First Order’s command is even worse than the Imperials, Kylo Ren is violently unstable, and there’s no telling what he’s capable of doing. You’ve sacrificed enough already – more than enough! You don’t deserve – ”

“Deserve?” Rex broke in, quiet and furious. “Are _you_ , of all people, going to try to tell me what I deserve?”

Anakin looked stricken. “Rex – ”

“My life, my death, my choice. Don’t you dare take that from me, don’t you dare even try!”

“I wouldn’t,” Anakin whispered. “I won’t. But Rex – ”

“If I die, my brothers will be waiting for me,” Rex went on relentlessly, words calm now even if his emotions weren’t. “I think I’m the last of us, Anakin. I don’t want to die yet, this isn’t a suicide attempt – but I’m not afraid of death either. That damn anti-aging treatment the New Republic gave us after the war… they meant well, but it was already too late for most of us, there just weren’t enough of us left. It’s been so long since Cody died… I miss him so much, I miss my brothers…”

“Rex,” Anakin said again, very quietly. This time it was Rex who cried, and Anakin who wrapped him in a tight embrace.

At last Rex pulled himself together, pulled them apart, though he kept his hands resting on the shoulders of the man who’d been his commander and his betrayer and his enemy and then at last simply his friend.

_Will you help me,_ he tried to say, but it didn’t come out like he’d meant. “Will you stay with me?”

In the shadowed light Anakin’s eyes were very blue.

“Yes. I’ll stay, Rex. As long as it takes.”

 

 

Despite his broken sleep Rex woke early the next morning; this damn old body wouldn’t stay asleep too long, just like it wouldn’t stay awake too long. Old and damaged – but not completely broken. Not yet.

At least was early enough that the fresher was still empty, so Rex could have some privacy for the next thing he had to do.  

He took a long look at himself in the mirror. Extreme age had taken his bulk and some of his height from him; he was thin enough to fit in stormtrooper armour again, even if he didn’t have the muscle to carry it anymore. He’d have to spend half a day or so rejigging the armour’s weight regulators so his weakened frame could take the load; the prosthetic joints and braces in his limbs meant that he could still walk under his own power, but couldn’t carry much more than that. He didn’t love the idea of putting on a suit of _that_ armour, but it wouldn’t be the first time.

But that wasn’t the only thing he’d have to change…

He reached out and touched his face in the mirror, briefly, then squared his shoulders and pulled out the auto razor. Rex had started growing in facial hair after Mandalore – a new face to mark the new man he’d become – but it was too distinctive, too closely associated with the rebel clone Commander Rex for what he was planning to do.

When he finished, he met his own eyes in the mirror and felt a shock run down his spine at the sight of the sunken-faced old man looking back at him. For a moment, with his head tilted to shade the side of his face, he’d thought he was looking at Cody. The old lonely grief clenched his heart; he had to blink away tears.

Then he looked at the mirror again and froze. Anakin was standing behind him.

It was the first time in years he’d seen Anakin while he was awake.

It was real, then. He was going undercover with only a ghost and this faulty old body… It wasn’t enough. But Rex had never been given enough, in all his long life, and he’d made do without it all the same.

He felt phantom hands grip his shoulders for a moment, a phantom voice in his ear.

“You won’t have to do this alone, Rex. I promise I won’t leave you.”

And maybe in the end that was all he would need.


End file.
